Setting Performance Targets

Chapter 2

Budget Targets

Show me the money.

—Cameron Crowe, Jerry Maguire

Introduction

In today’s aggressive corporate board meetings, more than one director might growl “Show me the money.” While Cuba Gooding Jr. in the movie Jerry Maguire captured the essence of challenging a manager, we have heard this often from directors. The real issue is that directors have to send financial signals to the stock market and investment analysts. The bottom line is the bottom line. All the great strategic initiatives, products, or service developments have to show improvements to the bottom line, be it in the short term or the long term.

This chapter focuses on budget targets because they are used across different parts of the organization. Operational ...